60 Minutes - Sunday, September 24, 2017

Episode Date: September 25, 2017

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exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico this past week, was the first Category 4 storm to make a direct hit on the island in 85 years. Last month, Hurricane Harvey was the most ferocious rainstorm ever recorded in the continental U.S. When you hear someone say these storms come along every 500 years or so, what do you say? Bullshit. Okay? Seriously. We have had three 500-year floods in the last 27 months. Now, you have the same cancer that Ted Kennedy had. Yes.

Does what he experienced go through your mind? Oh, yeah. I think about Ted a lot. Ted stayed at his job, kept working, kept going, even when he was in a wheelchair. And he never gave up because he loved the engagement. I am more energetic and more engaged as a result of this because I know that I've got to do everything I can to serve this country while I can. Last year's presidential election revealed a nation divided.

How do you think Donald Trump is doing as president? I love it. Every day I love him more and more. I feel like he's a horrible president and he has divided our nation more than it has ever been. You see it every day among families and friends, but tonight we attempt to turn that division into a conversation. Okay, okay, okay. Did you just, can we just have a moment? I'm Steve Croft. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Scott Pelley. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. And I'm Oprah Winfrey. Joining 60 Minutes on this, the 50th season premiere. all access subscribers can stream their local market games live and get full game day coverage

on tv connected devices and tablets from thursday night football to sunday double headers we have all your nfl on cbs excitement covered start your free trial now at cbs.com slash nfl that's cbs.com slash nfl like rounds of artillery hurricanes are coming in a salvo, the likes of which we haven't seen in more than a decade. Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico this past week, was the first Category 4 to make a direct hit on the island in 85 years. Last month, Hurricane Harvey was the most ferocious rainstorm ever recorded in the continental U.S. The number of storms is higher than usual, but it's their intensity that is extremely rare,

with two Category 4s and two Category 5s making landfall in a month. The question facing America's coastal cities is this, is the ferocity of these storms a fluke or the future? No one died on Bramblewood Drive but lives were lost. The lives we measure in memories, the bike that taught the kids how to fly, the perfect dining room chairs, the letter jacket. They can't believe they saved all these years. 14-831 Bramblewood in West Houston is the Shields' place. Vince Shields rolled his family history to the curb and dumped decade after decade.

My wife's a seamstress, and so these are probably her patterns that she had through high school and on up. We lost a lot of personal pictures, but most of this, you know, I won't have to have a garage sale. Shields, who retired from Shell, has lived on Bramblewood 16 years.

Here's a water line, So I'm 6'2". And the water line is as tall as you are. It is. 6'2". He'd never seen water in the house. The flood started to drop after two feet, but it surged to six after engineers opened the gates on two antiquated flood control reservoirs to stop the dams from failing. We've had church crews in here, Second Baptist. We go to Second

Baptist. They had a crew out here. We have had a couple of Christian crews from Lafayette. That's how you got all this done? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. All volunteers. All volunteers. People just walked up and knocked on the door. Yeah, or you sign up at church and put your name on the list, and people show up, and it's amazing. God works. More than 80 people were killed, and around Houston it's estimated that 27,000 homes were destroyed. Almost 25% of Houstonians live below the poverty level,

and many of their homes were in the floodplain. This is Joe's house. You'll see him. He's in the black shirt. All right. If you have any questions, ask me or ask Joe exactly what he wants us to do. Next door to Vent Shields, Joe Kilchrist's place was being gutted by military vets. Kilchrist kept the plywood from the last big storm season back in 05. The vets call themselves

Team Rubicon. Your masks have to stay on. You do not want to be breathing in that fiberglass. We'll walk in and I'll show you guys. Michelle Seed says they'll have 2,000 volunteers from all over the nation for two months. So yesterday I was like, I had a whole street. All the debris piles were beautiful and neat and ready for the city, and then I get assigned here this week, and you turn a corner, and you just see it's a whole new street full of people that need our help. Was the world capital of fossil fuels brought low by climate change? We asked Catherine Hayhoe, a leading atmospheric

scientist at Texas Tech University. It's too early to tell. The post-mortem will take years, so to speak, because climate science is all about the long-term statistics. We can say absolutely without a doubt that this hurricane took place over altered background conditions. Our planet is very different today than it would have been 50 or 100 years ago. By altered background, she means that the oceans of 2017 are on track to be the third warmest on record. Warmer water intensifies hurricanes three ways. First of all, in a warmer world, more water evaporates into the atmosphere. And so when a storm like a hurricane comes along, there's so much more water vapor sitting up there for that hurricane to sweep up and dump on us.

The second reason is sea level rise. Water expands when it's heated. And that means that when a hurricane comes along, the storm surges on average will be stronger because there's more water behind them. And then the third way that we expect climate change to affect hurricanes is through warmer ocean waters. More energy, more power will be available to hurricanes in the future, enabling them to intensify faster if conditions are right,

as well as become more intense. And that's apparently what we had with Harvey. We're starting to see it. What have you lost? Three cars, most of our home, and our rental property, and half of our sanity. You've been here 20 years. Ever flood before? Never. Is this house in a floodplain? No. No. Hell hath no fury like a woman submerged. The crack of every ruined memory exposed Cynthia Neely's rage, not at Harvey, but at Houston. She's with Residents Against Flooding, a nine-year-old group suing the city. They want to toughen the law that requires developers to dig detention basins to catch runoff from buildings.

Houston has grown about 25 percent in 20 years. We hired top-notch hydrologists, engineers to look at a problem and say, hey, something's wrong here, City, county need to do something. And so for all these nine years, we've been going to mayor after mayor, year after year, begging and pleading, asking for detention basins, asking for drainage infrastructure improvements. And they just look at us like, thank you for coming. Have a nice day. Why? It costs money.

And because this city is bought and paid for by developers. When you hear someone say these storms come along every 500 years or so, what do you say? Bulls**t. Okay. Seriously. We have had four, three 500-year floods in the last 27 months, now we have Harvey. Mother Nature is going to do what Mother Nature is going to do. That means it's going to rain. We're going to have hurricanes and tropical storms. So, by golly, do something to protect your people from it. Mr. Mayor, I talked to one of your constituents who uses words that I can't use on TV.

Okay. Sylvester Turner has been mayor of Houston nearly two years. I understand why people are mad right now. Because of their projects on the books. And the only thing that stopped those projects from being built was the funding. There is a sense among citizens who have flooded homes that there has been a lack of urgency about starting these major mitigation projects i agree i i agree with them um because you know all of these things are foreseeable so why haven't these things been done because because there hasn't been the urgency on all

levels to get them done and that's the sad part the threat hasn't been ignored entirely the federal government has spent more than 100 million dollars in the county over the years buying up homes in the flood plain but reams of flood control proposals fill the filing cabinets at city hall sometimes it takes an event to occur that shake people to their core. This storm has shaken people to their core. People don't want to hear the rhetoric, and I understand that. The question then becomes, are you, as elected officials and others, operating with the greatest degree of urgency. This is heartbreaking, guys. Yes, it is.

These are those two flood control reservoirs that were built in the 1940s. They are usually dry, which is why you see trees. A 1996 study by the County Flood Control District called them severely outdated. It's not hard to imagine, the study says, that a single storm event could have a catastrophic impact. A proposed fix was stopped by the cost, $600 million in today's dollars. But last month's catastrophic impact will be tens of billions. The former head of the flood control district who promoted that study lives in this house. He told us from the 1940s to Harvey, planning for the reservoirs went from

quote, brilliance to neglect to stupidity, to cruelty. Over the decades, thousands of homes were built on the floodplain. Hurricane Harvey was a human-contrived disaster. So if we have flooding, that's a natural process. A disaster is human-induced because we've put so many people in these flood-prone areas. Sam Brody studies coastal development for Texas A&M University. I think that climate change is one driver of this problem. So the bay is rising. We measure that. It's going to continue to rise. But if you think about climate change as one of the drivers to flood loss,

it pales in the comparison to the human change and the development of the landscape and putting people more in harm's way. That's a much bigger driver of the problem. Well, people like development. People like to have jobs. And I think we need to promote that, but doing it in a way that is smarter,

which means protecting the ecological functions of our landscape, wetlands, pulling away from these bayous. And over the long term, we're going to have more stable economy, better economic growth, because we're not going to be dragged down by these chronic flood events. Harvey is also rewriting emergency response plans. We're coming! During the storm, 160 helicopters and 17,000 troops rode to the rescue. We didn't want to hold anything back.

We wanted to be more prepared than surprised. Major General John Nichols commands the Texas Guard. Did you have all the resources you needed to deal with this? Yes, sir, we did. We also have states that helped us. 22 states brought helicopters, four states brought troops. If the storms of this size are going to be the norm in the future, what are you going to have to do? I don't know if it's going to be the norm, but that could be an option. We're used to a three-day storm.

Hurricanes come in, they move fast, and they go three days. We've not seen a storm that came in and lingered for six days and dumped 50-plus inches of water in one place. General Nichols says because Harvey exploded into a Category 4 in just 48 hours, next time he'll have to position his troops days earlier. As the nation's fourth largest city begins to dry, ideas for the future include buying more people out of their homes in the floodplains, turning two little-used golf courses into reservoirs, and building a massive sea gate to shield the ship channel from the Gulf. Those projects would cost about $14 billion.

Back on Bramblewood Drive, we notice the piano in Vent Shield's backyard. The green sticker guarantees the collapsed upright is waterproof for 50 years. But in an age of warming oceans, there are no guarantees. Folks on Bramblewood will have to decide whether to stay or go. Their past is no guide to the future. On Friday, John McCain announced that he will once again vote against repeal of the Affordable Care Act, once again disappointing his fellow Republicans and President Trump. In a statement, he said,

I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried. Nor could I support it without knowing how many people will be helped or hurt by it. And so the senator from Arizona has lived up to his reputation as a maverick and a fighter. McCain, who survived torture and solitary confinement during his five and a half years as a POW in Vietnam, is now, at at 81 in a second fight for his life, this time against glioblastoma, a deadly and unforgiving brain cancer. He invited us to his ranch just outside of Sedona, Arizona,

24 acres of old growth trees, a family of hawks, and a rippling creek that his dog Burma likes to swim in. You know, I'm wondering if when you're up here, if it's like medicine. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It puts everything in perspective. He and his wife Cindy have raised four children. They have survived two grueling presidential campaigns, a battle against melanoma, and now this.

You're taking both radiation and chemotherapy. You look terrific. How is this possible? I feel fine, and I'm eating everything that she makes me eat, none of which is... Is any good. Yeah, exactly. Spinach. One criteria to feeding people under my situation, it has to taste lousy. He has been through so much, I mean, the torture,

and you were put in solitary confinement. He's always been the indestructible man. Crashed two airplanes. Crashed two airplanes and walked away. Is he still the indestructible man to you? I'm still in disbelief that this actually has happened, and then I think, you know, cancer chose the wrong guy because it's not going to happen here.

Determined to stay in the arena, Senator McCain has resumed his duties in Washington. You'd never know it, but he starts his days with chemo and radiation and then heads to a full day of work. Come on, guys. Including chairing hearings of the Armed Services Committee. As leaders of our Navy, you must do better. I am more energetic and more engaged as a result of this because I know that I've got to do everything I can to serve this country

while I can. Now, you have the same cancer that Ted Kennedy had. Yes. Does what he experienced go through your mind? Oh, yeah. I think about Ted a lot. Ted stayed at his job, kept working, kept going, even when he was in a wheelchair. And he never gave up because he loved the engagement. The senator first learned he had a problem in Arizona back in July when doctors found a blood clot over his left eye after a routine checkup at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix. He was driving back to the ranch when he got word. I was driving up here and I got about two-thirds of the

way up and my doctor called and said you got to come back and I said hey that today is Friday I'll just come in on Monday and she said no you have to come now it's very serious you turn the car around and went immediately into surgery yes they thought it was serious enough that they had to act immediately and before the blood clot operation did they mention glioblastoma to you? Yes, but as you know, doctors are interesting. They cover themselves, don't they? I kept saying to them, tell it to me straight. Well, there's always this, there's always that, you know.

And I said, I can take it, just tell me. And then they were more forthcoming five days after the surgery lab results confirmed he had glioblastoma what did they tell you tell you about the prognosis that it's very serious that the prognosis is very very serious. Some say 3%, some say 14%. You know, it's a very poor prognosis. So I just said, I understand. Now we're going to do what we can, get the best doctors we can find, and do the best we can. And at the same time, celebrate with gratitude a life well lived.

Was he that tough? Yes, he really was. Just 11 days after his surgery, he returned to Washington against doctor's advice for the vote to repeal Obamacare. You walk out onto the Senate floor. You thought it was going to be normal, empty, mostly empty. And the entire Senate is there. They stand up. They give you an incredible ovation. What was, what went on inside? Oh, I got very choked up. And, and then of course, you know, all of them coming over and giving me a hug. It was deeply moving.

I had never seen anything like that. So you get all this affection, and then you give them this speech, kind of scolding to the people who just stood up and loved you. This was a speech condemning the way the Senate has been operating. We're getting nothing done, my friends. We're getting nothing done because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle. Two days later, as the repeal Obamacare vote was underway, McCain was subjected to urgent lobbying by Vice President Pence and the president himself over the phone.

And yet, at 1.29 a.m., McCain delivered the dramatic and decisive thumbs down as a dejected Majority Leader Mitch McConnell bowed his head. It was a huge defeat for President Trump, who has mocked McCain's Vietnam War record. DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States, He's not a war hero. He's a war hero. DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States, He's a war hero. Five-and-a-half years in the BW camp. DONALD TRUMP, President of the war hero. He's a war hero. He's a war hero. Five and a half years. He's a war hero because he was captured.

I like people that weren't captured, okay? There are some people who think that part of your no was to get back at the president and that the thumbs down was kind of more like a middle finger to him. If I took offense at everybody who has said something about me or disparaged me or something like that, life is too short. You've got to move on. And on an issue of this importance to the nation, for me to worry about a personal relationship, then I'm not doing my job. But the fact is his personal relationship with the president has been fraught. Just last month, he wrote an op-ed saying the president is, quote,

often poorly informed and can be impulsive. Do you worry that he's not fit for the office? First of all, I believe in our system. The American people selected Donald Trump to be president of the United States. We have to respect that. Second of all, he has a very strong national security team around him, who I know has a significant influence over him. Let's talk for a minute about DACA, the Dreamers Act. Donald Trump, the president, a Republican, has embraced Nancy Pelosi. You go out and watch Republican campaign ads around the country. She's the target. Sure. Do you think he

has initiated divorce proceedings with Republicans? I don't know what he's going to do tomorrow. So or say tomorrow. He changes his his statements almost on a daily basis. So for me to spend my time trying to analyze what he says, I don't know. Did he ever apologize for saying you're not a hero? No. If the president wanted to have a rapprochement with you, would you be receptive? Of course. Of course. I've supported him on national security.

I've supported his team. I'm talking about man to man. Sure. I'd be glad to converse with him. But I also understand that we're very different people, different upbringing, different life experiences. What do you mean by that and what does it make you think about? He is in the business of making money and he has been successful both on television as well as Miss America and others. I was raised in a military family. I was raised in the concept and belief that duty, honor, country is the load star for the behavior that we have to exhibit every single day.

The son and grandson of four-star admirals, he's the first to admit he's an imperfect man. That's when they captured you. Though he has made real sacrifices for his country. When you think about your horrible time as a POW, the torture and everything, do you relive it? your horrible time as a POW, the torture and everything. Do you relive it, or has it now faded so much that you can almost see it as if it happened to someone else?

Listen, the joy of my life was the bonds that were forged between me and my fellow POWs. They were wonderful. We fought together. We loved each other. We would tap on the walls to each other. I look back on that experience with a great deal of pride. Do you think that this diagnosis has changed you?

No. Not at all? No. Same person? No. I think you've got to, you know, you just have to understand that it's not that you're leaving. It's that you've stayed.

I celebrate what a guy who stood fifth from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy has been able to do. I am so grateful. Every night when I go to sleep, I am just filled with gratitude. Since the diagnosis, you've never once had that, I guess, that feeling in your stomach of panic? No, no, no. I have feelings sometimes of fear of what happens. But as soon as I get that, I say, wait a minute, wait a minute. You've been around a long time, old man. You've had a great life.

You've had a great experience. I want, when I leave, that the ceremony is at the Naval Academy, and we just have a couple of people that stand up and say, this guy, he served his country. Now, special contributing correspondent, Oprah Winfrey. Last year's presidential election revealed a nation divided over the media, popular culture, and especially politics. People got their news from different sources, believed different things, and watched close friends and family members

stop talking over their choice of candidates. Eight months into the presidency of Donald Trump, we wanted to know if the divide was still as deep and bitter as before. So we traveled to a state that played a pivotal role in the election, Michigan. There we gathered a diverse group of Americans and asked them to lay everything out on the table. The group included a farmer, a drug counselor, a speech therapist, a former GM factory worker, and a sales manager. And they all had a lot to say about the state of our union in the early days of the Trump administration.

I want to know from everyone around the table, how do you think Donald Trump is doing as president of the United States today? Tom? I love it. Every day I love him more and more. Every single day. I still don't like his attacks, his Twitter attacks, if you will, on other politicians. I don't think that's appropriate. But at the same time, his actions speak louder than words, and I love what he's doing to this country.

Love it. Yes, Jennifer. I feel like he's a horrible president, and he has divided our nation more than it has ever been. And then when he's on teleprompter, he's saying, I mean, I'm like, that's great, that's great, that's a good message. But when he's off teleprompter, I feel uncomfortable. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. And I think that we look like we're a joke to all the foreign leaders. We are. We are.

It's an embarrassment. He's terrible. You like to hear his things? Because he's not... A president sets the tone and sets the example. It's like a quarterback in a two-minute drill. The quarterback sets the tone. President Trump is not setting the tone.

He is setting the tone, just not what's helping him. Yeah, he's setting the tone of negativity. But all he's doing is setting a bad tone. Right. Exactly. Matt, we wanted somebody to go in and flip tables. We're tired of the status quo, as some people wanted on the other side. We were tired of that. In your mind, what table got flipped?

Every time he does a rally or a tweet, he's speaking for people that are sitting at home in Iowa or Oklahoma or Montana that just want to say it that way. For years, we asked for a president who would just say it that way. For years, we asked our president who would just say it the way we do. We got that. Grab a seat there. Grab a seat next to him. The conversation took place last month in a converted power plant in downtown Grand Rapids, where Frank Luntz, a pioneer in the use of focus groups and a contributor to CBS News, assembled our group. How many of you say we're a divided country? Everyone.

And paid participants $100 each for taking part. Your friends are going to see this, and your family is going to see this. He selected 14 for a seat at the table. Seven voted for President Trump. Seven did not. Half voted the party line. For others, it was more complicated.

Can you talk about it? Okay, let me just explain that. I've been a Republican my whole life, and I could not support Trump. My whole entire family supported Trump, and I got persecuted by my own family. And they, my dad especially, and so he was trying to force me to vote for him. Did you all stop speaking to each other for a while? For a while, yeah. Because you voted for? Because I voted for Hillary.

And it was a protest vote. You were protesting? I was protesting Trump. I have a 10-year-old and a 3-year-old, and it scares me every day what their future might be. As somebody who I feel I'm really moderate, I voted for Bush twice. I voted for Obama twice. And I voted for Trump. And part of the reason why is because I gave the Republican establishment a chance. least give this president a chance? Because in my opinion, we're not. We already have preconceived ideas of what he's like. Are they preconceived ideas, or does he show us or tweet to us

or demonstrate through his actions every day who he is? Can we give him a chance? People from this area are as divided as anywhere in the country, but they're known for their Midwestern manners and something locals call West Michigan nice. To me, a trait we put to the test. Can you give me a word or a phrase describing your mind, the typical Trump voter? Oh dear. I'm curious. I'm curious what I'm going to be accused of here. What's your word, Tim?

I would say angry. Frustrated. Frustrated. I would say angry. Fed up. Fed up. Fed up. Forgotten.

Misinformed. I say wounded. The typical Trump voter you think is wounded? I think is wounded. And new wounds were inflicted nearly every time we brought up a contentious issue, starting with the investigation into Russian collusion in the U.S. election, which we introduced by way of a presidential tweet. You are witnessing the single greatest witch hunt in American political history led by some very bad and conflicted people. He's talking about the Russian investigation. Does that matter to you? I don't want to hear one more word about Russia. That's so over the hill for me.

What good is it doing anyone? Do you think the Russian investigation is valid? No. Who here thinks it's not even valid? Really? Okay. We had a foreign country attack our country. You know what? Spare us the fake outrage. We change regimes in Egypt.

We change regimes in Libya. We're talking about our shores influencing our election. So it's perfectly acceptable for us. And he is considered guilty until proven innocent right now, in my opinion. Because where's the crime? Where is the crime? Tell me. Where's the crime? He fired the FBI director for performing the Russia investigation. No, that wasn't the crime. That is a corruption of justice.

He invited the Russian ambassador into the Oval and said the pressure is off. Are you kidding me? The events in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a young woman was killed at a white supremacist rally, also exposed the divide. We showed the group excerpts from the president's comments about the violence, which were criticized for drawing a moral equivalence between hate groups and those who came to protest them. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides. It is no place in America. What is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives.

Now, what's wrong with that? I agree with that. Oh, my gosh. Many sides did not kill that woman. They're both wrong. They're all wrong. They're both wrong. He messed up.

He did not mess up. He was absolutely correct. He was absolutely correct. That's correct. The KKK wasn't fighting with the KKK. Okay. There were two groups. Okay.

I'm not hearing what you're saying. Go ahead. He never said there was equivalence, okay? It was the media. He condemned both of them. When you heard him say that there were both sides and there were many sides, when you heard him use that phrase... I saw both groups of people fighting.

Actually, I didn't see any African American there. I saw two groups of white guys fighting each other. And I'm going, okay, he is denouncing all hate all racism and all violence. That's what you saw. That's what you saw. That's what you saw. Does the president's response say anything to you about his moral leadership? Yes. If we don't fight hate speech it's a slippery slope to hate crimes. What does it say going out there and saying blood and soil and Jews will not replace us, carrying torches and reenacting the horrible images of the

KKK and pre-civil rights? I fully support that one side was coming up against, boldly coming up against hate speech and hate crime. So they're coming up to fight the First Amendment. You're okay with that? I don't think this is coming up to fight the First Amendment. And it is the First Amendment. Don't you understand? I hear you. The First Amendment protects all speech, whether you like it or not.

There needs to be a limitation on freedom of speech. If it incites hate, you can just say, oh, the problem. If you're going to put a limitation on freedom of speech, is that freedom of speech? When I say put a limitation on freedom of speech, I'm not saying take away their ability to have their say. But when it incites danger and someone getting harmed and hate, there is where the limitation needs to stop at. When you raised Charlottesville, the group broke down, and they became tribal.

They all retreated to their natural political instincts, and it got rough. Frank Luntz, who put this group together, uses information from sessions like these to help corporations and politicians craft their messages. Now, here's how we're going to do it. And he says everyone from local officials to the president of the United States could benefit by listening. What do you think Charlottesville did to affect his presidency? Charlottesville says that this president at best is misunderstood and at worst doesn't hear the voices of half of America.

And he's got to listen better, and he has to be more careful with his words. And with his tweets, according to the group, including supporters of President Trump. I don't like the tweets. But is it modern presidential because every president has used some form of media?

President Obama started with the tweet, with tweeting and the social media platform. It's part of modern technology. The president's going to use it. The pope uses it. I mean, everybody in the world

uses Twitter. It's not about using it. It's about how you use it. Absolutely. You know what? President Obama didn't use it to attack people and bully people. He also didn't use it to attack people and bully people. He also didn't use it to announce policy that should be discussed behind closed doors and vetted.

Specifically, can you pull up the transgender? But let's go to this. After consultation with my generals and military experts, please be advised the United States government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military. What did you think of that tweet? Bad tweet. It was horrendous. Yeah, he shouldn't have done that. I'm too old to be in the military, and I'd like to serve.

Is that ageism? But your argument is exactly what they used when they prevented African Americans and gay people from serving in the military. And we're using it again on this group of people. No, this is completely different. This is a choice. Nobody chose to be gay or black. They did not choose to feel this way. They believe they were born this way.

They did not choose to be transgender. Okay. He said bad tweet. he said bad tweet. He said bad tweet. Bad tweet, bad tweet. He lied. Bad tweet. He lied.

Do conversations like this matter, the conversations that we had last night? Conversations like what happened last night stopped happening in this country more than a year ago. When it became dangerous to tell people in the so-called flyover states that you supported Hillary Clinton, when it became dangerous to tell people in New York or L.A. that you supported Donald Trump. They were afraid for their friendships. They were afraid at work. And so we've just stopped talking politics. I want to broaden this out a bit. Is there anything that keeps you up at night? Because I'm trying to see what's your life like? What's keeping you up at night? I wake up every morning praying to God that I don't get a notification on my phone that says we've nuked North Korea.

Will this country last? Is this experiment that our founders started going to last? Yeah. Because my kids, it's not about me, it's my kids and their kids and the next generation. We're all going to be okay. We might going to be okay. We might not all be okay. And this is the part where I get emotional. What keeps me up at night is that in a week, tomorrow, any moment, this health care thing that a lot of people just want repealed without thinking about the fact that if I wake up tomorrow without health care, my life is over.

And so to say, repeal Obamacare and don't replace... So tell them just a little bit you had migraines. I have migraines every single day. Not everybody knows what migraines are like. Oh, boy. But if you see somebody rolling around on a tile floor pulling their hair out, could you see that and take away my health care? Why can't we repair Obama?

Can I make a statement? Okay, okay. Can we just have a moment? Did you hear what she said? Yeah, I think it's horrible. I don't want to take away her health care. I want to reform health insurance, and I want to reform the health care cost. That'd be great, too. Let's do both.

As our conversation wound down, West Michigan nice was still largely intact, but many remained apprehensive. I want you to look into your crystal ball and tell me from your point of view what the future looks like. By the time of the next presidential election, are we more likely to have come together? Will we have sought common ground? Unfortunately. As wonderful as this has been, I think that we're going to be just as divided.

I'm even fearing civil war. Anyways. Okay, you all are nodding your head. She says, I fear a civil war, and you all are nodding your head. Yes. Yeah. We do. I do fear that.

I think we're going to be more divided than ever. I'm going to have to agree. I think we're going to continue. We're going to continue on this track of being divided. Of not hearing each other, being divided. I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. Really? Yeah, okay, go ahead.

We do not understand each other. And when we're talking, we're talking different languages, and we're not actually listening and understanding each other, and that's causing the divide. These are crucial conversations that need to be had. And they need to be had in Washington. And they need to be had in Washington. They need to talk to each other. They need to cross the aisle,

and they need to do what we sent them there to do. We've got to come together and find a way, but I'm hopeful for the future that we can do that, yes. Just sitting around this table showing me this tonight. If people just get a little common sense and settle down a little bit and start talking things out, we can work things out. After three hours, we moved the conversation to a nearby restaurant where it continued late into the night.

Since then, many members of our focus group have kept talking, both online and in person. Several attended a congressional town hall meeting together. And just last week, five people from our group went to a shooting range to try and understand each other's views on gun rights. Tonight's broadcast begins our 50th season of 60 Minutes. It's a milestone we're going to mark each week with a 60 Minutes moment from a past broadcast. And where else to start but at the beginning with Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace. September 24th, 1968. the first 60 Minutes. Good evening. This is 60 Minutes.

It's a kind of a magazine for television, which means it has the flexibility and diversity of a magazine adapted to broadcast journalism. And if this broadcast does what we hope it will do, it will report reality. But we do think this is sort of a new approach. We realize, of course, that new approaches are not always instantly accepted. We'll see. I'm Mike Wallace.

We will indeed. I'm Harry Reisner. And I'm Steve Croft. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.